


Alone In The Darkness

by wildwordwomyn



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, Established Relationship, Grief, Loss, M/M, Non-Graphic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-23
Updated: 2008-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildwordwomyn/pseuds/wildwordwomyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a lover dies, grief takes its toll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone In The Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dark one. And I'm leaving it up to you to decide for yourselves who's who and whether or not the survivor really does survive in the end. Read at your own risk.

Once darkness has touched a person there is no going back to the light. It’s impossible. This is what no one understands unless it is they who have been, who are, who will be touched. Because before that moment life is simple, not necessarily easy but more predictable. Before is birthdays and parties, first dates or Disneyland, the magical wonder of life. At the moment time stands still. No. That’s not true. Time ceases to exist. And after? Well, after the moment death comes too slowly.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

“Hey, you!” she calls from the other side of the internet café. When people turn to look your face automatically becomes a blank slate. “How are you?” She walks swiftly, unself-consciously around tables and chairs, unaware of your flinch when she reaches up to ruffle your shaggy hair.

“Hey, Sherry,” you respond quietly. You let her wrap her small arms around you and squeeze. It isn’t enough, though. It never is anymore.

“So?” She pulls back to smile up at you. “How are you? Really?” The smile falters at your lack of enthusiasm, then falls completely when you answer.

“Really?” You both know she’s only asking to be polite.

“You know, I saw your mother the other day. Did she tell you?” You don’t nod or shake your head. You don’t even blink. You just stare. “Well, anyway,” she continues, her voice a little higher out of nervousness, “she was telling me about last year’s sunflowers. About how she’d found the perfect lily and how she’d dipped the head in sugar water and…”

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

Winter is the season of silence. People don’t talk about it because it’s true. The season of silence. And stoicism. Coldness. Sunrises so bright they blind and dense fogs you can’t cloud your breath with. On bad nights warmth refuses to rise from the snow. It’s right to be this way, to remind you that life, the half that you live, is a luxury you no longer wish to afford.

“Talk to me,” you whisper into the whistling wind. Your shivers, somehow, aren’t caused by the chill in the air.

“Please…” What? Stay? Go?

“Exactly,” you say, holding back so much your voice shakes as much as you do. “Please…..” It’s not real. Not a dream. Survival of the fittest matters only if you’re fit. “…..Damn it, don’t do this! Talk To ME!” you finally growl as the darkness descends.

Fists form to beat the damned back into the Earth. The pain, when it comes, is a welcome relief. This you can fix. This you can understand. Blood, sweat and tears, and a roaring in your head that drowns out the loudness of everything else. Your knuckles soon swell, the grooves filled with dirt. They say rage is an important part of grief. To you it’s a worm hole that sucks you in over and over again. Where you end up changes but the shell of you remains the same.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

“I love you,” he whispers breathlessly in your ear.

You’re buried all the way inside him missionary style, your face folded into the curve of his neck as you slide slowly in and out. You’re taking your time because you don’t get the chance often anymore and because making love with him is an experience that you don’t take lightly. His warm hands grip your hips as his erection dances between your stomachs.

“Right…there…..God!...” He arches up into you, gasping your name. When you hit the spot again on another stroke he tenses and trembles, then tumbles deep into the kind of climax that curls his toes. It doesn’t bother you anymore that he’s looking into your eyes. What you see there makes up for any fear you feel. “…Have I said I love you lately?” he asks hoarsely once he’s calmed down enough to speak coherently.

“About five minutes ago,” you answer with a smile.

“Oh. Well, hell!” You wiggle your arms under his back to squeeze his shoulders and pull out. “Can I say it again anyway?” It’s the eyes that get you. Wide open and dark with desire and _here_. You can’t help sliding back into him.

“Always,” you groan, picking up the pace a little.

“Baby? So soon? I don’t know-”

You hit his prostate on every thrust now. “What was that?”

“…Never…..N-n-never m-mind…,” he replies, hardening again without hesitation.

You kiss him then, softly, slowly, sweetly thinking this is what love should feel like. Full and satisfied, real, tender. Never-ending. This is every day. This is you and you’re so damn grateful you cry a little each time you make love. It’s alright though because he does too.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

Waking up each morning is the hardest part. Anyone would think going to bed at night is but they’d be wrong. When you first open your eyes it’s sunny out, bright, and dreams of him in your arms still fill your thoughts. At first you roll over with an out-stretched hand, expecting a finger-squeeze or a peck on your knuckles before being pulled into a warm embrace. Instead you get cold sheets on his side of the bed because you haven’t yet adjusted to the fact that this king-sized space belongs to you alone now. You’re reminded all over again that he is gone and he will never come back.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

It’s been four months, six days, eight hours, ten minutes and twelve seconds. Your friends, the ones who still call once a week because they’re loyal but no more than because they’re young, try to get you out of the house by mentioning booze and babes at local bars. When you realize they’re actually serious about the babes part you punch one and hang up on another. They learn not to ask anymore. Family, on the other hand…

“You need to see new faces, new places, man. Meet someone new.” This your cousin says after your mother has sweet-talked her way in to the house with company in tow.

“I do.” It’s neither a question or answer. You stare at your cousin who’s average in every way, who’s only had three girlfriends though he’s in his fifties and none of them stayed with him very long.

“Yeah! Your mom was telling me about…you know… and I was thinking being cooped up here in the dark? Depressing! How can you feel better if you’re not in the land of the living-“

“Andy? Please…” Your mother sighs, looking at you, tsking. She opens the curtains on all the windows and mumbles under her breath about it being so stuffy. “Now, Son,” she says softly when the rays highlight all the dust particles floating around, “I hate to say this but Andy is right even if he used all the wrong words.”

“I was just-” Andy shuts up soon after receiving her mother-glare.

“Like I was saying, you need to get out. Be among other people. Breathe.” She places a cool, dry hand on your cheek.

“How, Mama?” It’s a valid question, one that no one has the proper answer to.

Later you’re graced with other family. And just when you think it can’t get worse the sun falls right out of the sky.

“We were thinking,” his mother starts, looking around the house. For a second you’re glad your own mother blew through earlier and left a cleaner place in her wake. “We were thinking of selling.”

You blink, incapable of a bigger response.

"The bank keeps calling and we can’t afford the payments. And you’re not working right now.” At least she has the decency to look uncomfortable. “It just seems easier,” she finishes.

“We’re not putting you out on the street. It’s just…” his father adds rather lamely. “Who needs the reminder of what we’ve lost?”

“…Reminder? Of what _we’ve_ lost?” You turn to face his sister. “Are they serious?!” She shakes her head sadly. You realize that of the four of you she has the least amount of life experience and the most respect for your position.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I’ve tried to talk them out of it.”

“Talk us out of what?! He was MY son! Mine!” When his mother explodes, she really explodes. You don’t have the energy to get angry at her. “YOU weren’t in a hospital screaming over labor that lasted twenty-two hours!”

“So because I didn’t give birth to him I don’t count? Because I wasn’t lucky enough to have him as long as you did what I meant to him doesn’t matter?” Your voice is quiet but your tone is hard.

“You weren’t even married!” comes a booming voice. You can’t help noticing how much like him it sounds.

“I’m sorry,” his sister says again. “I’m so sorry!” She pushes them out the front door while you fall, unseeing, into the closest chair.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

“They want me out,” you spill into the phone, crying quietly.

“I’m on my way,” he tells you gently. “Just hold on.”

When he shows up he walks in to find you on the sofa, curled in on yourself, staring at the wall as tears slide down your face.

“Eight years…Can you believe it?...He walked his way into my life and that was it.” He sits beside you, rubbing slow circles into your back. “Never cheated, never lied, and all they can say is because we didn’t legally get married it doesn’t count.”

“It does,” he murmurs.

“Of course it does. Eight years. That’s a lotta days spent loving a person. Then he gets sick and dies and suddenly I don’t matter…The house reminds them too much of him. What about me?!” You wonder, trembling.

“They don’t understand-”

“You know, I can’t call myself a widow? I can’t keep this house. I can’t even collect Social Security on him…”

“I know…”

“No one gets that. Not even you,” you say. “We would’ve gotten married if we could. In a heartbeat. But it was no big deal. We _felt_ married…..” You sit up to look over at your friend. He looks back sympathetically. “You think it can’t be that bad. Losing someone. Then it happens and you really can’t cry hard enough. You can’t cry long enough. You can’t cry…You can’t cry enough. Period.” You sigh.

“I can’t even imagine,” he says.

“You don’t want to. Believe me.”

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

"Can’t do this anymore,” you whisper into the stone bearing his name and dates of birth and death. “Don’t want to…”

You wait, listen for him, but he doesn’t say a word. You loved all the different ways he said your name and you would literally, willingly, kill to hear it now.

“Please?...” The only thing that responds is silence. “It’s too much…”

When you walk away you walk toward the darkness. And let it swallow you whole. Here you can’t see your own shadow. But that’s alright. They say you have to learn to crawl before you can walk…


End file.
